Oxfordshire Community Land Trust

Dear Investors,  

We’ve had a teeny bit of a breather since February 28th and also needed to attend to a change of staff. Mark Child who has been leading on the Crofts Court Share Offer has gone back to working in law full-time but we are delighted to say that he has joined the Board. We are also delighted to announce we have been joined by Hannah Jones who is gradually taking on the work Mark had been doing as OCLT Coordinator.  

You will all be aware that we have extended the Share Offer not only because many people got in touch in the last few days enquiring about investing but also because every £1 raised in community shares costs less than borrowing it from the bank.  One interesting fact is this: we had 40 new investors in the final 4 days. And since then, we have had a further 12. We have also had over a dozen new members in the last few months.  

We are particularly interested to attract small investors so we can involve more and more people in this sort of effort. It’s a great way to help build the sector of permanently affordable homes. So if you know anyone in that category please encourage them to invest so we can get up to our optimum of £650K. We’d also love to keep increasing the membership.  

Many of you attended the event we shared with Aspire at Trinity College on February 15th so will know something of the story of Crofts Court but in case you don’t, here is a very short film of the story as told by yours truly on the night.  

We know some of you also live near the site so you will hopefully notice some posters over the next few weeks to encourage locals to invest. We are also writing to local businesses. And finally a picture of the site last Friday. The scaffolding is down and it’s taking shape. Several directors visited and reported the rooms look bright and airy. 



Please get in touch if there is anything you’d like to ask or suggest.   

With best wishes,
Fran Ryan

Dear Oxfordshire CLT investors,

OCLT is delighted that it has now raised in excess of £500,000 and met its minimum milestone. Thank you to everyone that has already invested. We will now be able to significantly reduce the trust's reliance on increasingly costly debt finance at Crofts Court as loan interest rates rise.  

We've been overwhelmed by the response and the number of people who want to support our work and take a stake in our first development which brings community-owned permanently affordable homes to Oxfordshire. We've also been contacted by a number of people who still want to invest but haven't been able to, so far.   

The Board has had discussions about what to do next and as one of our Directors said ‘It’s a nice problem to have’. Therefore as noted as a possibility in the Crofts Court Business Plan, we have decided to extend the community shares deadline to 12 April 2023. This will allow any additional investment to help pay down even more of our construction loan and make Crofts Court more cost effective. It will also enable greater numbers of members to join and support our work going forward to help bring forward more sites.  That way we can start to make a real difference in the local housing crisis.   

We won’t set a target for this but you might remember from the Business Plan that the maximum possible raise would be £1,129,035, this being the entirety of the construction loan. The optimum raise is £650,000. The totaliser will simply add to what is there and it's already at 104%.  

Some of you may know that this is not a first for Ethex and successful offers in the past have met their optimum and even maximum target. I'm happy to be joining that small number of groups and once again iterate our thanks to all our members and shareholders.

Everything we raise while the share offer remains open will reduce our borrowing.  

We will keep you updated. 
Fran Ryan OCLT

Join Oxfordshire CLT for an event to learn more about Oxfordshire Community Land Trust's work to create community-led affordable housing to Oxfordshire.

Register to join them for an evening with guest speakers including Jan Royall (Principal of Somerville and Co-Chair of Oxford Inclusive Economic Partnership), and short films. They will be introducing guests to community-led housing in the context of the county’s broken housing system, and how genuinely and permanently affordable housing is the only way to tackle this.

They will also provide an update on their first development at Crofts Court and explain how their community share offer lets investors become part of the solution.

OCLT are hosting this event in conjunction with Aspire Oxfordshire -so you can also learn about their efforts over the past year to help those affected by homelessness in the county.

Places are limited, so please register on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/community-led-affordable-housing-and-combating-homelessness-in-oxfordshire-tickets-512999434117?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

The building at Dean Court, Cumnor Parish, west Oxford is going well and the roof went on before Christmas. We are still on schedule to move in around June and once residents have settled in, OCLT hopes to welcome members and investors to come and see for themselves how community-led housing can really be of benefit.  

Another exciting development is that the homes have been advertised on Vale’s Homechoice website and OCLT is looking forward to meeting prospective tenants, interviewing them and getting started on the training over the coming months.

Dear Investors,

Thank you for investing! It's going well and never a dull moment for the Board as we attend lots of Christmas events to tell people about the project.  

We know many people can't afford to invest at the moment (or indeed ever) and we are focusing almost as much energy on getting people in that category to join us for £1 as members of OCLT, as more members means a stronger, more engaged and more diverse trust. If you're not already a member you will become one as soon as the share offer successfully concludes. 

We have produced some bookmarks for investors and potential investors with information about the share offer for use in your reading or to pass on to anyone else who might be a potential member or investor.

You can obtain your free bookmarks by emailing fran.ryan@oclt.org.uk. 

Best wishes to you for the holiday season and we look forward to meeting you on site when the tenants move in!